Zines and water are sadly not friends. But thanks to Triple Zed Brisbane. The fair is happening upstairs. Bands will still be performing in the car park! Rock! Scissors! Glue!

So… we have just got back from hijacking the This is Not Art festival in Newcastle. A huge thanks must go out to ARThive for letting us invade your space during your kick arse ‘This is Not Bart’ exhibition.  Lizzie has done up a bit of a write up about the 1st October launch day and below is a photo of gocco printing madness at the TINA Zine fair on the Sunday. Thanks Sarah Mould for the killa rat art as part of Bizoo’s touring gocco prints series. (I’ll put up a bunch of photos from ‘This IS Art: Bizoo takes on the TINA Festival’ on facespace shortly).
For the Brisbane launch, you’ll be able to print your own Philip Dearest creation (above). Feel free to bring along your own paper, material or bag to print on.

This coming  Saturday the 8th October it’s Brisbane’s turn to Celebrate! To celebrate the launch, Toowoomba based Folk/Punkers Jack Flash will also be launching their debut album, on the day, alongside illustrious Brissie rockers The Giants of Science, The Strums, and Gunk. The whole shebang is totally free, and so is the book! The fun starts with a zine fair at 10:30 am in the Zed carpark,  with bands hitting the stage at 3pm. Proudly presented by: Bizoo, 4ZZZfm and The Paper Cuts Collective.

Running times…..
10:30am – 2:30pm Zine Fair / Workshops – Zine making brought to you by Visible Ink & Gocco Printing by Bizoo (image by Philip Dearest)
3-3:30 GUNK
3:45 – 4:15 Giants of Science
4:30- 5 The Strums
5:15 – 6 Jack Flash

Hope to see you Saturday.
Dr Jerm & The Bizoo Crew

Introducing the discussion Crew!!

Unlike your standard Q and A panel session, where so called ‘industry pro’s’ discuss their worldly knowledge and talk at you, not with you, Bizoo’s This IS Art panels are a social, honest and realistic chat about all things zines. Yes, we have the so called ‘industry professionals’ on hand, but their role is to fill the conversational void left by participants. This is not a lecture. It’s a chance to meet other zinesters, creators and indie crew, eat some free lunch and guzzle some beer before the Golden Stapler Awards. The panels are devised to inspire artists and new projects, talk about real issues in producing your own publications, how they get out to the world and what the etiquette should be. The discussions will be led by zine and independent creators, fans and everyone in attendance. Descriptions of ‘You don’t make friends with zines!’ & ‘This is not a library!’ will be online shortly. Location and details are below.

FaceSpace event page….

Bizoo takes on the TINA Festival – Saturday, October 1 @ ARThive Newcastle, NSW.
The lowdown…
10am: ARThive, Grab the Bizoo Book and check out the ‘This is Not Bart’ Exhibition
10:30am – Midday: You don’t make friends with zines! (discussion)
Midday – 2pm: Free Vegan BBQ
2:30pm – 4pm: This is not a library! (discussion)
4:30pm -5:30pm The Golden Stapler Awards pre beers and chill out

You Don’t Make Friends with Zines

Your right, ‘You Don’t Make Friends With Zines’, but you do get to add to the political and social landscape in your own way. With the Golden Stapler Awards just hours away, we look at competition In the arts, as well as zine etiquette, especially while badmouthing people that will most likely read your zine. What makes a zine a zine, and what are the standout characteristics of a zinester (yes, you are all stereotypes). Who’s in your zine community, how do you keep active and what feedback have you had on your work? How do zine collectives, such as the PaperCuts take on the mainstream and literary activism.

This Is Not A Library !

After smashing down some sausages at the BBQ, it’s time to get a little heavier with ‘This Is Not A Library’. This session is your chance to voice your pain, start a shit fight and show your love of the printed word. Zine currency, trades, and the crazy price of postage is one thing, then there is zine tabling and distributing to think about. Where do zines fit in, now that major book chains such as Borders have gone bankrupt. With three distro’s represented on the panel, they talk shop on creative zine launches, how to score free printing, stick it to the man, and make a few bucks to pay for the bus home. Archiving practices, legal deposit, and snatching the readers while they’re young, but old enough to have that disposable income to throw around is considered.  Who is your audience and how to tap into new and old generations, while keeping it real. Come have a chat with us, and start the awards pre-drinking together.

Discussion Facilitators:

Dr Jerm/Staples – Discussion topics: Pilfering government grants, how to supplement your Newstart allowance by other shady means, and publish zines (all at once!). Dr Jerm has been publishing zines for 10 years, was an intern at America’s biggest publisher of zine’s, Microcosm Publishing, joined together zine crews while visiting Zines Mate in Japan, and helped found the Brisbane group Paper Cuts Collective. Dr Jerm has finally launched the much anticipated Bizoo music and arts and bullshit anthology while living in a single garage sized flat. Still without a day job (he has no time for one), you can read about his adventures in the USA in Whenever I see A bearded hobo on the street, I’ll think of you and smile, where the phrase “It’s all fun and games until someone almost loses an eye” becomes amazingly apt.
www.thestaples.com.au
www.bizoo.com.au

Elouise Quinlivan – (not Sticky’s Eloise – totally different person) Runs a zine shop called Smells Like Zines in the deepest backwaters of Queensland (Toowoomba), and has been riding the zine wagon since underage drinking and late night zine making were cool.  In recent times Elouise has been playing roller derby, home-brewing, living the dream and writing about it. Her most recent offering; Complaints Letters shows Elouise taking on businesses in the style of Nerf Jihad.
www.smellslikezines.com

Emily ‘That Smelly Kid’ – Fresh from a year long hike around the Philippines, Emily suffered every zinesters worst nightmare: having a years worth of content for Gutterslug 3 stolen in both its electronic laptop and external hard dive forms. Anarchist, stencil graffitist and trouble maker, Emily (aka ‘that smelly Kid’) will join the discussions  with stories about travel, living in squats, youth and adult housing shelters, and generally living the dream (WARNING: Emily’s dreams may differ significantly from yours, and should not be listened to whilst under the influence of psychotropic drugs).

Luke You – Is the paperbag wearing, anonymous weekly publisher from Melbourne. Leading multiple lives in the zine world, Luke has reached the 10th year anniversary of the You saga. Publishing the only zine with a plastic knife attached to the cover of each issue, and playing in a metal noise band while stripped down to his hairy chest, this guy knows the zine world in and out.
http://zinewiki.com/YOU

Simon Grey – Adelaide zine shop Format manager, coordinator of the Golden Stapler Awards, and illustrator editor of student paper Empire Times in 2004. In 2006 he started and ended the zine series Simon Gray: 2006, & spoke on panels about it at The National Young Writers Festival. Simon’s work has appeared in Australian publications all over the place, such as The Format Annual, Pop Culture and Two Minute Noodles, YOU, the cover of Leigh Stardust’s They Make Good Pets (But I Don’t Have One), Fistfull of Comics, Excitement Machine, On Dit, & another of his own zines, The Fake Bitter Milk.
http://yummy-lychees.livejournal.com/

The following day…

Sunday, October 2
TINA Sunday Fair 2011-Zine & Artists Market @ NCC King St Carpark
11:00am – 4:00pm: Grab the Bizoo Book & try out our new Gocco Printer

photo: JiÀhn Art Fotografie

Bizoo Zine and the ARThive crew invite you to the launch of Bizoo: The Best, The Worst and The Trash That Never Made It’ a free retrospective book that covers the highlights and the lowlights of the music and arts zine, Bizoo. Bizoo grew up in Toowoomba (or as some of you might recall ‘Poo-woomba’). Over its twenty-five issues, Bizoo rounded up a tribe of 50 contributors from across the country and became a platform that supported the arts nationally.

The lowdown…
10am: ARThive, Grab the Bizoo Book and check out the ‘This is Not Bart’ Exhibition
10:30am – Midday: You don’t make friends with zines! (discussion)
Midday – 2pm: Free Vegan BBQ
2:30pm – 4pm: This is not a library! (discussion)
4:30pm -5:30pm The Golden Stapler Awards pre beers and chill out

Sunday, October 2
TINA Sunday Fair 2011-Zine & Artists Market @ NCC King St Carpark
11:00am – 4:00pm: Grab the Bizoo Book & try out our new Gocco Printer

We’ll put up more info shortly, also here’s a link to the Facespace event.

(more…)

Elouise Quinlivan from Smells Like Zines and Bizoo crew member has a chat with Miranda Grant from ABC Open.

I began putting together a care package to post to her; beeswax candles, a travellers tube of Vegemite and other suitably supportive Australiana. Just as I was adding the final clip-on Koala into the parcel, my smartphone chimed liked a grandfather clock.

Bing! You have mail…

Bizoo: ‘The Best, the Worst and the Trash that Never Made it’.  The launch of this publication was happening at the Toowoomba Regional Gallery, celebrating a compilation edition of Toowoomba’s infamous street press Bizoo. For the five years it was in print, Bizoo followed musicians, artists, live events and festivals from Toowoomba, Queensland and around Australia. This was a youth culture zine that contributed a great deal to the cultural underbelly of Southern Queensland.

But hold on, what is a zine? ….

By Open Producer Miranda Grant

 

The Bizoo Street Zine crew are preparing to hit the road and create havoc, read into this as you will. It may mean crashing on your floor and drinking your beer or it could mean, zine rock & roll parties throughout the state. We’ll be loitering the streets of Newcastle for THIS IS NOT ART, then the following weekend (8 Oct) hosting a party at the Triple Zed Brisbane car-park (someone mentioned a Zine fair).  After… we’ll be travelling North and regional QLD from the 19 Oct till the 19 Nov. More details soon….

Currently, the only way you can get your hands on a copy of ‘Bizoo: The Best, The Worst and The Trash That Never Made It’ is by visiting the following locations in Toowoomba, Queensland. Being our hometown and all. We thought it would be a fitting gift. It’s pretty doubtful Toowoomba actually wanted this exclusive gift, but hey. That’s how we roll.

You’re welcome to try and barter with us to get a advanced copy though!

A national launch and tour is in the works. Stay tuned.

photo: Jacob Hickey

Toowoomba, QLD
Smells Like Zines: 4/203 Margaret Street (Upstairs next to Cafe Forte)
MADE Creative Space: Upstairs 174 Margaret Street
Toowoomba Regional Gallery: 531 Ruthven Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkZV5Mg16vQ

John Elliott’s Mini Bizoo Launch Doco (Toowoomba)

We haven’t recovered just yet… but don’t worry, the photos and tales from the Toowoomba launch and parties will be online shortly. No doubt they will be haunting the Bizoo crew for many years to come…

Australian photographer, writer, creative producer and social documentary maker, John Elliott created a mini doco about Bizoo and its Toowoomba launch. John shot, edited and uploaded it before the keg had even been cracked for the after party! John has authored two definitive books on Australian country music and was Slim Dustys official photographer.

Thanks John and thanks to everyone who came along and celebrated the Toowoomba launch of the Best of Bizoo book!

Join us on a Cultural Underbelly Tour where you can discover past and present hangouts and creative spaces – some now charred and long gone, others still thriving. Check out the veranda where Operator Please and Parkway Drive played sell-out all-ages shows. See the alleyways that once pulsed with electric energy as artists strutted their stuff. Visit the current spaces that now serve as dynamic arts hubs for Toowoomba’s creators and creatives alike. The tour will depart from the Toowoomba Regional Gallery at 11:30am after the official launch that commences at 10am.

WHY?

Because Bizoo street zine once helped develop the arts and culture scene in Toowoomba, one  gig guide, bogus interview/review and grassroots event at a time. It was founded on a love for local alternative culture and now celebrates 10 years since the first of 25 issues hit the streets with spelling mistakes, slander and photo’s the world wasn’t meant to see – retouched and republished.

It’s a chance to celebrate the past and present venues, and hear first-hand what the organisers, promoters and owners contributed to the ‘scene’ as it’s known. Stopping past Artist Run Initiatives MARS, Made. and Smells Like Zines ‘ Faces and Places of Bizoo’ exhibition, as well as the Boogie Shack, Kaboom Comics, the shack, Community Radio 4DDB and the Summer Riot Acoustic showcase, before finishing the afternoon with a BBQ at Lakeside. Take a breath before wrapping up the day with the after-party at Bon Amici’s with documentaries, DJ’s and more chaos kicking off at 6pm.

Elouise Q

Coinciding with the Toowoomba launch of ‘Bizoo: The Best, The Worst and The Trash That Never Made It’  Saturday 23rd July!

‘The Faces and Places from the Bizoo Era’ exhibition by Michael Wilson
‘Smells Like Zines’ (upstairs, 4/203 Margaret Street)

Be the 1^st to view  ‘The Faces and Places from the Bizoo Era’ as part of the Cultural Underbelly Tour leaving from the Toowoomba Regional Gallery at 11:30am.

“I miss taking photos for Bizoo. I miss being that weird guy with the camera. I miss stoned chicks coming up to me stinking of pot and saying my photos are awesome.”
Michael Wilson

- Click to Enlarge -

After three years of blood, sweat and tears, the crew at Bizoo Headquarters are proud to announce that “Bizoo: The Best, The Worst and The Trash That Never Made It” is finally printed, and will be launched on the 23rd of July in our hometown of Toowoomba. And because Toowoomba is extra special to us, you folk get to grab a copy a month before the rest of Australia!

Bizoo was an independent publication with a community grassroots ethic. It was founded on a love for local alternative culture. It’s been ten years since Bizoo began proudly supporting local bands, the arts and events organised by the people for the people. The official book launch begins at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery at 10am. Be the first to grab a copy, find the mistakes we missed, and hear tales from the creators, and the shenanigans involved with creating Bizoo.

Kicking off from the Regional gallery at 11:30, join us on a Cultural Underbelly Tour where you can discover past and present hangouts and creative spaces – some now charred and long gone, others still thriving. Check out the veranda where Operator Please and Parkway Drive played sell-out all-ages shows. See the alleyways that once pulsed with electric energy as artists strutted their stuff. Visit the current spaces that now serve as dynamic arts hubs for Toowoomba’s creatives.

Following are some of the tour highlights;

- Summer Riot’s ‘Acoustic Show’ from 10:30 – 3:00pm, Outside Myer Grand Central

- Elysha Gould’s exhibition at ‘Made Creative Space’ Artist Talk at 2:30pm (upstairs, 174 Margaret Street)

- ‘The Faces and Places from the Bizoo Era’ exhibition by Michael Wilson @ ‘Smells Like Zines’ (upstairs, 4/203 Margaret Street)

The Bizoo celebrations will wrap up with a very special event to be held at Bon Amici (191 Margaret Street), from 6:00pm. Come along. Meet the talent and troublemakers behind Bizoo, and enjoy some DJ tunes featuring local bands from over the last decade!

We would love to see you on the 23!
Dr Jerm + Bizoo Crew.